A controversial decision to limit commercial development in London’s southwest is now out of council’s hands, as a new ruling from a provincial tribunal orders city hall to raise the cap keeping new retail from popping up.

The body that rules on land-use conflicts in Ontario has overturned a previous council decision to keep the reins on retail in the big-box corridor along Wonderland Road, creating what one political scientist calls “a headache” for the new city council.

The decision requires bumping the cap – set and maintained by two previous councils – from 100,000 square metres to 118,700 square metres to make way for a new development planned by Southside Group in the southwest enterprise corridor, which runs along Wonderland Road from Bradley Avenue to south of Exeter Road.

But it opens the door to a new debate over the effectiveness of that retail cap, and could create a sticky situation for politicians as they weigh future development applications in the southwest area, home to sprawling parking lots and a bevy of big-box retailers.

“It does create a new headache for council to figure out what to do. I know there are a lot of people who don’t want to see the wild west out there,” Andrew Sancton, former head of Western University’s local government program, said of the enterprise corridor.

“I can certainly understand the arguments for restricting development, (and) I can understand why developers who were shut out by that were upset. There’s no question it’s a mess.”

The Local Planning Appeal Tribunal (LPAT) – a successor to the Ontario Municipal Board – ruled recently on an appeal filed by Southside Group in 2017, arguing the company’s proposal for a 18,700 square metre retail development was an “appropriate” land use that fits with the vision for the southwest enterprise corridor.

The LPAT decision notes city staff previously recommended council lift the cap on commercial development because it was “forcing inefficient leap-frog development . . . and precluding development on desirable commercial sites.”

“It is in the public interest not to intervene in the marketplace,” the LPAT ruling read.

City hall has six months to iron out a new zoning bylaw to allow the nearly 19,000 of commercial development, and specify the “urban design” principles that Southside must follow to better fit in with policies for the southwest area.

But other developers with land along Wonderland also are eager to build there.

Coun. Stephen Turner called the entire corridor “a wicked problem.”

“I think we’ll continue to struggle with the enterprise corridor for as long as the corridor is developable,” he said, saying last council “struggled to find a way out of the mess,” when it rejected a staff recommendation to blow the lid off the cap.

Turner was adamant the cap should remain so as not to decimate nearby retail nodes, including White Oaks and Westmount malls. He stands by that view, even with the new ruling.

“We need to maintain that cap, but that doesn’t prevent us from taking a look, on a site-by-site basis, to see what (applications) are acceptable and what’s not,” he said. “The whole enterprise corridor picked winners and losers . . . it’s a total bastardization of the original vision for the (southwest area plan).”

Debate over the limit on commercial development has re-emerged several times during the past two council terms, since the Joe Fontana-led council capped it at 100,000 square metres – triple what city staff recommended. York Developments already owned nearly 60,000 square metres in that corridor.

It’s created that “leap-frog development” cited by the LPAT, with empty patches between plazas that are a mecca for cars, but less desirable for a pedestrian and transit-friendly zone.

Coun. Anna Hopkins, whose ward borders the area, admitted the LPAT decision sets a precedent. She voted last year to eliminate the cap. She added she wasn’t surprised to see a ruling to raise the cap.

“It was inevitable. How are we going to develop this whole area if we’ve got a cap on it, when one developer owns 60 per cent of it? We want orderly development, and to create a transit corridor, and an area where pedestrians can move.”

Hopkins also was dismayed by the LPAT decision that a nearby pond which could be impacted by the Southside development wasn’t a natural heritage feature in need of protection, instead ruling it was a man-made frog pond.

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